Back in April, after about six weeks of deep, aching back pain, I went for an MRI. Unlike most test results I’ve had in my life where I’m told “everything looks fine” I was given an actual diagnosis: a stress fracture at L4. It’s not a big deal. I was in a brace for a month and still have one month more of limited activity yet to go and everything should heal completely. It did provide fodder for a good laugh with a friend– that I’d been going on for such a long time about needing “a break” that I finally got one.… Read the rest
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While I occasionally have a plan for what I’ll talk about in the opening meditation for class, most of the time it’s a surprise even to me what comes out. Sometimes, it’s what has been showing up in my own life and practice, what I’ve been reading about or what I am consistently hearing from students. Other times the message seems like it is arriving from the universe as a dharma lesson for me personally as much as it might be for anyone else in the room. Over the many years of teaching, I have come to trust the impulse of what rises whether planned or unplanned, comfortable or not.… Read the rest
Do your practice. All is coming.
by Jill Sockman
This came through my inbox this morning: “On the path of transformation, you will experience acceptance, which entails accepting your own inner condition exactly as it is, without reacting to it or defending against it.” Also in the inbox, from a different source: “You can have all good things – wealth, friends, kindness, love to give and love to receive – once you have learned not to be blinded by them, learned to escape from disappointment, and from repugnance at the idea that things are not as you want them to be.”… Read the rest
Integrity and a Yamas Refresher
by Jill Sockman
I’ve come to use #specialtimes to describe events of late. By the accounts of many around me, we are in the midst of a time of big transitions, and I don’t just mean the weather. It’s all pushed me to pause to take a look at just what integrity means. So you might want to settle into your seat or scroll down right now, as I have the feeling this is going to take a hot minute.
The word integrity means “adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character” and “the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished.”… Read the rest
Fall is Vata Time – return to nourishment of self
by Jill Sockman
I got my first whiff of Fall about two weeks ago. It wasn’t even cool outside, the air didn’t hold the crisp and dry quality that will come in a couple of short months, but it was Change — no doubt about it. It’s an unmistakeable phenomena that happens to me twice per year: both the coming of Fall at the end of a long, hot summer, and the first notion of Spring when we near the end of the dark, cold winter months. This ephemeral, intangible note in the air was the first message the summer is coming to an end, it’s time to get back to work, and most importantly, it’s time to return to deep nourishment of self.… Read the rest
Listen to your soul
by Jill Sockman
I’m not sure who coined the phrase “you teach what you need to learn,” but I know that even while words are spilling out of my mouth, I am often aware the message coming forth applies to me at least as much as it applies to anyone else in the room. So it shouldn’t be a big surprise to me that I’ve been talking a lot lately about how necessary it is to cultivate an awareness — a relationship — with the part inside of us that Knows. It’s a gentle nudge for me to take a closer look: am I practicing what I preach?… Read the rest
Why yoga?
“Suzanne, why do you do yoga?”
If I had a nickel for every time I was asked this I would be really rich. REALLY rich. I have come to believe that the people who ask are the ones who are looking for one of two things. They genuinely hope I will say something so profound they will immediately see the light and understand what brings me to the practice. Otherwise, they hope I might say something that sounds so outrageous they will laugh and be able to place me in the category of “that strange yoga person.”… Read the rest
It begins
My blue family,
At about this time every year, I silently (or not so silently) ask the question, “why do we do this?” It’s usually followed by a short list of reasons why a fundraising event of this magnitude is really out of our scope and is, therefore, driving us out of our minds. But that small and whiny voice is always drowned out by the deeper, stronger, louder, and truer voice that answers, “we do this because we can.”
In the words of Albert Einstein,
“Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”… Read the rest